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Janice Crouse

Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America knows the real reason why young voters are more likely to favor marriage equality and vote for Democratic candidates like President Obama, and it’s apparently because they’re just not smart enough to know better.

Crouse writes today in the Christian Post that young adults are “without a solid foundation” and “fall prey to the fads and changing winds of cultural trends,” transforming American youth into “a reliably leftist demographic.”

“They are also one of the best-educated generations in American history – a finding that many consider highly questionable, given their appalling ignorance both of history and contemporary events,” Crouse writes, lamenting that “this rootless generation, with little grounding in historical knowledge or moral commitments, is ripe for the demagoguery of community organizers and activists pushing special agendas.”

She adds that young voters don’t realize that gay rights are harmful to freedom, arguing that marriage equality laws “censure those whose religious beliefs condemn this unfortunate change in the definition of marriage. Marijuana legalization, the same. Life without boundaries for them, but not for the rest of us.”

According to exit polling data, in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, Millennials (young adults 18 to 33) were a reliably leftist demographic, both in their voting and their views. Now, it appears that – even though they remain decidedly liberal on political and social issues – this influential group of Americans is up for grabs in the 2014 and 2016 elections. That is to say that no specific politician or ideology can count on their support.

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One of the troubling findings in the survey is that “about three-in-ten (29%) say they are not affiliated with any religion.” Coupled with their lack of political affiliation, this rootless generation, with little grounding in historical knowledge or moral commitments, is ripe for the demagoguery of community organizers and activists pushing special agendas. For example, Millennials see no inconsistency in adamantly advocating their own freedom to express their position and, at the same time, pushing for activist government policies to promote same-sex marriage and censure those whose religious beliefs condemn this unfortunate change in the definition of marriage. Marijuana legalization, the same. Life without boundaries for them, but not for the rest of us.

… Without a solid foundation – a worldview of their own – Millennials fall prey to the fads and changing winds of cultural trends. Only one-quarter (26%) of Millennials are married (in contrast to other generations when at their age – Gen X 36%, Baby Boomers 48%, Silent Generation 65%). Obviously, the lack of marriage does not mean a lack of sexual activity; cohabitation and random hook-ups are substitutes for marriage, with predictably bad measurable outcomes for both men and women.

In spite of their support for big government, liberal social views, lack of patriotism, general optimism, and personal support for President Obama (though that is declining), Millennials, like the three generations preceding them, disapprove of single parenting and believe that it is bad for society.

Pew explains some of the Millennial views by their racial diversity: “About four-in-ten members of the millennial generation are non-white – a much larger percentage than in older age groups.” They are also one of the best-educated generations in American history – a finding that many consider highly questionable, given their appalling ignorance both of history and contemporary events.

While people across the world have held up the Pussy Riot prosecution as an example of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s human rights abuses, the group has had some strong detractors in the American right. Just as with Russia’s recent crackdown on LGBT people, the ordeal of Pussy Riot has divided the American conservative movement. While Texas senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party hero, last month criticized the prosecution of the band (whose name he nevertheless wouldn’t say), some of his allies on the Religious Right have cheered Putin on.

Shortly after the sentencing of Pussy Riot’s members, Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America – also a board member of the Rockford, Illinois-based World Congress of Families – wrote a column arguing that the band was guilty of “religious bigotry” and should “accept responsibility for [their] actions.” At a World Congress of Families event earlier this month, Crouse repeated that she had “no problem whatsoever” with the Pussy Riot prosecution.

The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), a close ally of the World Congress of Families that works to oppose gay rights and reproductive rights advances at the United Nations, has repeatedly defended the Pussy Riot prosecution on its blog, calling them a "small group of female hooligans" and comparing them to 1960s political "terrorists."

Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan also defended Putin’s actions against Pussy Riot, praising the Russian president for “trying to re-establish the Orthodox Church as the moral compass of the nation it had been for 1,000 years before Russia fell captive to the atheistic and pagan ideology of Marxism.”

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer praised Putin’s supposed protection of “Christian values,” calling him a “lion of Christianity.”

As we discuss in our “Globalizing Homophobia” report, the anti-gay part of Putin’s agenda has caught the imagination of American social conservatives, who have rallied to support the Russian president’s defense of “Christian values.”

Putin’s targeting of Pussy Riot is closely linked to this crackdown on gay rights that has been enthusiastically embraced by American conservatives. Both are part of a broader campaign to stir up popular sentiment against minority rights: On the very same day that the Russian parliament passed its infamous “homosexual propaganda” ban, it also responded to the Pussy Riot controversy by imposing an anti-blasphemy law that imposes a three-year prison sentence for “offending religious sensibilities.”

The Religious Right has perhaps inevitably caught wind of the story of a Florida middle school teacher who was suspended for using explicit lyrics from a Lil Wayne song to teach her students about figurative language. The school district disciplined the teacher, who recognized that the lyrics to “6 Foot 7 Foot” were “totally inappropriate for a school assignment,” but that hasn’t stopped groups like the American Family Association and Concerned Women For America from latching onto the episode as evidence of the evils of rap, feminism, lesbians, and contemporary literature.

In an interview with the Christian Post Tuesday, American Family Association president Tim Wildmon declared that “rappers don't use English, so that would be crazy to have rap music as part of an English class.” Wildmon later made clear that he was not personally familiar with the genre, saying, “from what I've heard it's hard to find rap music that doesn't have obscenities in it.” He suggested that the teacher should have picked a Gospel song instead.

“Rappers don't use English, so that would be crazy to have rap music as part of an English class," quipped Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, in an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday. He criticized the use of profanities in a school assignment. "It's irresponsible, it's inappropriate, and I don't think it fits the course that he's teaching at all – I would object if I were a parent," Wildmon declared.

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Wildmon of AFA also homed in on the profanity-laced Lil Wayne lyrics, and questioned the teacher's reasoning behind the selection. "To take lyrics that include obscenities – from what I've heard it's hard to find rap music that doesn't have obscenities in it – that should not be appropriate for a Junior High School," the AFA president declared. "Why didn't he pick Gospel or Country music, and why that song from that particular artist?"

Meanwhile, Concerned Women For America’s Janice Shaw Crouse saw the Florida incident as proof of the failures of feminism. “With the supposed success of feminism, we have more misogynist popular music and cultural influence than ever before,” she told the Post. She blamed this trend on feminists who “forgot about helping women achieve dignity and success, and instead got bogged down in special interest agendas like abortion, lesbianism and quotas.”

"As a consequence, we've got watered down quality and ramped up sexuality and crudity," Crouse quipped. With teachers using comic books and contemporary literature as curriculum material, students have no concept of great literature."

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Crouse called it "ironic" that "with the supposed success of feminism, we have more misogynist popular music and cultural influence than ever before." Even while more women earn advanced degrees than ever before, popular culture objectifies them more and more.

The problem traces back to a major shift for the worse in the feminist movement, Crouse argued. "They forgot about quality – they forgot about helping women achieve dignity and success, and instead got bogged down in special interest agendas like abortion, lesbianism and quotas," she said.

Representatives of the World Congress of Families held a news conference at the National Press Club on Wednesday to talk about their 2014 summit, which will be held in Moscow in September. The WCF and the Religious Right groups it partners with are ardent promoters of anti-gay legislation worldwide, and they love Russia's anti-gay President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this week the WCF announced that the opening session would be held in the Congress Hall of the Kremlin Palace, that a special parliamentary session will also be held in the Russian Duma and a special scientific forum at St Petersburg State University. At today's press conference it was announced that the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is expected to address the gathering.

WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs, C-FAM’s Austin Ruse, Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse, and Alexey Komov, WCF’s man in Russia, were delighted about anti-gay legislation that has passed in Moscow and were defensive about western criticism of Putin’s regime.

Given the record of the event organizers, none of that was very surprising. What was surprising is the way the press conference was hijacked by conservative activist Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, who pointed out that Putin was a product of the Communist-era KGB; he took the organizers to task for partnering with Putin and produced a list of political prisoners he said are being held in Russia.

Kincaid’s strident criticism of Russia’s history provoked Komov into a screed against real and imagined problems from American history, from the slaughter of Native Americans to political prisoners in Guantanamo, complete with references to the supposed killing of 200 witnesses to the JFK assassination and the question of who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Komov suggested that during the era of Ronald Reagan, the U.S. was free, pro-Christian, and pro-capitalist, while Russia was mired in communism. He suggested that under Obama and Putin, a role reversal is under way. He said he would hesitate to say which country is more free, Russia or the U.S.

Jacobs was clearly uncomfortable with Komov’s rant, perhaps because, as he had mentioned earlier, WCF has yet to finalize confirmations from Members of Congress who they hope will attend the Moscow summit.

Speakers said they were proud of what Crouse called Russia's "leadership role" on behalf of the family, and proud of what Ruse called the "massive network" of people organizing around the world on behalf of the family and in opposition to "the agenda of the sexual left."

Asked about bipartisan criticism of the increasingly anti-democratic nature of Putin’s rule, Ruse suggested that some people are “stuck in cold war amber” and are consumed by a “visceral hatred of all things Russian.” He energetically supported Russia’s anti-gay “propaganda” law, saying “there is no human right to tell the gay narrative to schoolchildren.” And he dismissed concerns about Putin’s moves against freedom of the press, saying Russians had no “historical memory” of that kind of freedom.

Janice Shaw Crouse said she had “no problem whatsoever” with the prosecution of members of Pussy Riot, falsely claiming that they had disrupted a church service with the performance that landed them in jail.

All the speakers claimed that freedom of press and dissent is alive and well in Russia, saying that they have criticized Putin’s crackdown on homeschoolers and that bloggers are free to criticize the government. And they portrayed Russia as a sort of paradise where gay couples can stroll hand in hand without fear. (For another view, read Jeff Sharlet's recent reporting from Russia in GQ.)

Komov slammed “radical LGBT activists” who he said were trying to turn the Olympics into a “gay pride parade.” Komov said he opposed violence against gay people, but he insisted there was no correlation between passage of anti-gay laws and anti-gay violence in the country, dismissing the idea as “hysteria” from “the liberal media.”

Komov also opined that the Olympics were no place for gay rights: “Olympics is the place for sports and health and normal values that unite everyone ...And we know that if we want Olympics to be sports and health, we know, statistics show us that homosexual lifestyles are not healthy.”

WorldNetDaily today reports on the right-wing organizations that are boycotting the Girl Scouts for such offenses as tweeting a HuffPost Live video in which someone mentioned Wendy Davis, promoting “ardent feminist” writers, marching in a gay pride parade, and incorporating “labyrinths, global warming, yoga, avatars, smudging incense, Zen gardens and lesbian role models into their teachings.”

They also have incorporated stone labyrinths, global warming, yoga, avatars, smudging incense, Zen gardens and lesbian role models into their teachings.

In a lesson called “Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along,” girls were taught that they should read Buddha and explore mazes and stone or dirt labyrinths – symbols rooted in pagan mythology and popular within the New Age movement as meditation tools.

They also were introduced to Polish poet Anna Swir, known for her feminist and erotic poems, and Jane Addams, an ardent feminist and pacifist.

The American Family Association sent an email to its members last week urging them to “just say, ‘No, thank you” when a girl scout comes to their door selling cookies. “It’s hard to say no to those little girls in the green and brown sashes,” writes AFA president Tim Wildmon, “but buying Girl Scout cookies serves only to further facilitate a very liberal pro-abortion agenda.”

Concerned Women for America has also come out against the Girl Scouts. CWA’s Janice Shaw Crouse told WorldNetDaily, “The Girl Scouts formerly embraced the Judeo-Christian values that Americans once grew up with – love of God, love of country, treating others fairly and living wholesome lives. Now, Girl Scouts are more focused on indoctrinating girls on the so-called women’s rights agenda.”

Now, Religious Right groups including the National Organization for Marriage, the Family Research Council, and the American Family Association are coming to WCF’s defense.

The National Organization for Marriage’s Brian Brown – who WCF arranged to testify before the Russian parliament in favor of its broad ban on adoption by gay people – told the American Family Association’s One News Now that Kirk decided to “discriminate against a group that stands for traditional marriage” and that by doing so he was “undermining the party platform” because “it’s part of the Republican Party platform to stand up for traditional marriage.”

The Family Research Council piled on with a press release accusing the senator of “true discrimination” and “silencing anyone who doesn’t adhere to a politically correct view of sexuality.”

"Holding a different view of marriage and sexuality is not discriminatory - especially when all the social science research demonstrates the benefits of the natural family,” added FRC’s Tony Perkins.

Meanwhile, the Illinois Family Institute, the state affiliate of the American Family Association, published an article accusing Sen. Kirk of wanting to “normalize sexual deviance while trampling the conscience rights of untold numbers of people” and followed it up with an email urging its members to call Kirk’s office and express their displeasure.

As Miranda reported earlier, House Speaker John Boehner’s office stepped in to provide space to the anti-gay Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society for its symposium on what Americans should learn from other countries when it comes to “family policy.” Sen. Mark Kirk, who had originally sponsored the group for a room, withdrew his support last night saying he doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.

The Howard Center’s Allan Carlson, who described himself as a historian by training, saw fascism at work: “The parallel I see here is what happened in Italy, Germany, other lands in the 1920s and 1930s as fascism began to impose its fear-driven grip on debate, on conversation, and on policy-making.”

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America boasted about having been a speaker at all but one of the World Congress of Families summits – annual events organized by the Howard Center and attended by conservative religious activists from around the world. Crouse acknowledged that “things don’t look so good” to activists watching the advance of same-sex marriage in Europe and the U.S., and public opinion in many countries shifting to “quote LGBT rights.” But, she said that’s not the whole story, and praised countries that have outlawed gay marriage and other groups of citizens who are “with the help of God” changing the world.

Crouse is particularly excited about what is happening among opponents of marriage equality in France, which she portrays as a “David v. Goliath” battle of plucky pro-family activists fighting the French government and media. She mentioned activists in Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, and Nigeria. She encouraged the small number of attendees to “take heart” and count on the power of truth and faithfulness.

Austin Ruse, the enthusiastically anti-gay head of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, devoted much of his remarks to supporting Russia’s new anti-free-speech and anti-gay propaganda law. He read from a statement of support from “pro-family groups” defending Russia’s new law. The letter claims that “the Russian law protects the innocence of children and the basic rights of their parents recognized in the international legislation and treaties.” More from the letter:

With its new law Russia is protecting genuine and universally recognized human rights against artificial and fabricated “values” aggressively imposed in many modern societies….We thus call for respect of the sovereignty of the Russian people and we invite all organizations and people who feel responsible for the protection of the innocence of children and their rights, the natural family and parental rights to stand up for Russia, as well as for Ukraine and Moldova suffering the same pressure due to similar laws.

Ruse, who has been spending time in Russia to prepare for the World Congress of Families 2014 summit, being held in Moscow, said western LGBT rights advocates were guilty of overheated rhetoric and “propaganda” about the status of gays in Russia. He saw gays everywhere in Moscow! They can enjoy themselves “hassle-free” at clubs. Russians, he said, accept that homosexuality exists, but they believe the political movement to celebrate and regularize it is harmful to children.

Speakers actually seemed envious of Russia in some ways. Ruse said that with the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church, “Christians over there are truly dominant.” In the U.S., though, there is “an increasingly hostile atmosphere toward people with traditional values” and a “vicious totalitarianism that is loose in the land.” And “there’s more trouble coming” with the Employment Non Discrimination Act. Crouse said American gay-rights activists are “turning into thugs who are destroying freedom of speech, destroying religious liberty.” It’s very “refreshing,” she said, to see that’s not the case in other countries.

Ruse acknowledged that anti-gay violence and thuggery is a problem in Russia. He denounced such violence and said he has urged Russian officials to do more to stop it. But when he was asked whether the conversation about the anti-gay propaganda law and protecting children from gay people might encourage such violence, he said anti-gay violence in Russia has been going on for a long time and didn’t think the new law was to blame. And he said blaming religious conservatives for creating a climate of hate is a tactic of gay-rights groups, a “maneuver to silence people.”

Carlson said he cuts Russia a lot of slack because the country is “trying to put decent moral society back together” after both Communism and some of the “bad things” – like a “libertine approach to sexuality” – that poured into Russia from the west after the fall of Communism.

A Capitol Hill event featuring groups that push anti-gay laws abroad, which was scheduled to take place in a Senate office building today, developed a layer of unexpected intrigue last night when the event’s organizers sent out an email announcing that the meeting would be moved to a House building after the unnamed “senator who was sponsoring our room” canceled the room “due to media pressure.”

It turned out that the senator in question was Illinois’ Mark Kirk (home-state senator of the event’s organizer the World Congress of Families), and that the “media pressure” was Buzzfeed’s Lester Feder simply calling up his office to ask about it. Kirk’s office immediately dropped the event and announce that “Sen. Kirk doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.”

WCF responded by announcing that “obviously Senator Kirk doesn’t care about families and children and freedom and has chosen to side with the policies of decline, death and disease promoted by the Sexual Radicals.”

To the rescue came none other than Speaker Boehner, whom World Congress of Families president Allan Carlson thanked for providing the group with its new Capitol Hill digs. Boehner’s spokesman nevertheless distanced his boss from the group in a statement to Feder: “This administrative task obviously does not imply endorsement of any particular point of view.”

All of this drama then became a central focus of the event, which was billed as a discussion on what the U.S. can learn from “family policy lessons from other lands.”

Carlson kicked off the event by announcing, “A great fear seems to be descending on what was once called the world’s greatest deliberative body” and saying that Kirk’s pulling the plug on the event’s room reminded him of the early days of fascism in Europe.

Another speaker, Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse, who is also on WCF’s board of directors, blamed the change of plans on “a group of radicals” – an odd accusation since there had been no organized effort to prevent the event from taking place.

In her latest column for the American Thinker, Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse repeats the claim of "newly conservative lesbian" blogger Cynthia Yockley that the Affordable Care Act will “destroy marriage for the middle class the same way that the Great Society welfare state destroyed the black family.”

Crouse bases this accusation on a bogus GOP talking point about the health care law’s supposed “marriage penalty” (if you care to read a full debunking, Igor Volsky has one here). This is all, Crouse alleges, a nefarious plot for “promoting single motherhood and discouraging marriage” in order to increase the number of single women, who tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

But it’s not only the health care law: Crouse repeats her frequent allegations that anti-poverty programs such as food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit are also deliberate attempts to “encourage individuals to reject marriage.”

Worse, we are discovering that ObamaCare really will "destroy marriage for the middle class the same way that the Great Society welfare state destroyed the black family -- with financial incentives for staying single." ObamaCare's marriage penalty could possibly cost couples over $10,000 a year. This intentional disparity means that U.S. government policy will encourage singleness and create increased disincentives for marriage. Single individuals will have an advantage with the earned income tax credit as well as welfare benefits, including food stamps. This comes as no surprise, of course, because "making the subsidies neutral towards marriage would lead to a married couple with only one bread-winner getting a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income-level."

With ObamaCare ramping up subsidies promoting single motherhood and discouraging marriage, an increase in poverty is inevitable -- along with dramatic increases in entitlements and dramatic tax hikes to pay for the increased entitlements. These increases are just one more of the numerous financial incentives in current government policy that increasingly encourage individuals to reject marriage -- the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), housing subsidies, food stamps, child support payments, and the welfare dependency programs that created and sustained the inner city matriarchal culture. These perks are costing American taxpayers trillions of dollars a year. Current welfare programs total close to $1 trillion a year (twice as much as national defense and nearly the size of the federal deficit); ObamaCare is projected to add another $2.5 trillion after all its provisions take effect. There's no end in sight to the increasing costs of these entitlements.

Politically, the "marriage penalty" is also a Democratic vote-getting initiative -- 70 percent of unmarried women voted for President Obama in the 2008 election. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a liberal firm that consults for clients such as Bill Clinton and John Kerry, said: "Unmarried women represent one of the most reliable Democratic cohorts in the electorate ... leading the charge for fundamental change in health care."

After arguing that gay marriage is a threat to children and community spirit, Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America took to the Washington Times today to warn about the approaching “bleak future Christians” in which people of faith will experience “harsh retribution in the form of fines and imprisonment” if gay marriage becomes legal.

Crouse lashed out at “in-your-face media campaigns to normalize homosexual relationships” and pointed to an opinion piece by a Heritage Foundation fellow in CNN.com to claim that the DOMA ruling is a threat to democracy.

“It contradicts centuries of experience across time and cultures for the best family structure for strong nations,” Crouse writes about same-sex unions. “It represents a national experiment in social reconstruction at the expense of our children’s futures and the future of America.”

Regarding the Proposition 8 vote, the Supreme Court, in an instance of legal maneuvering that trumps common sense, said that those sponsoring the California initiative did not have “standing” to defend the constitutional amendment passed by more than 7 million voters. This amounts to the court saying, if we don’t want to address the issue, we simply say you don’t have the right to raise the issue with us. Thus, the California officials who refused to enforce the law got away with rejecting the will of the majority in their state.

In the Defense of Marriage Act vote, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3, which defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman for federal purposes. The narrow victory grants federal benefits to same-sex couples who live in states where such “marriages” are legal. In effect, though, the decision overturns the 1996 action of a bipartisan majority in Congress, even though the decision allows states to determine their own definition of marriage. Even CNN pointed out: “This is a serious loss for federalism and democratic self-government.” Section 2 of DOMA, which remains, makes it clear that no state is required to recognize another state’s same-sex “marriages.”

The technicalities, though, are obscured by the media “victory” won by the homosexual activists. More and more Americans are viewing same-sex “marriage” as inevitable, and the in-your-face media campaigns to normalize homosexual relationships are successfully changing the popular culture.

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The bottom line is that the Supreme Court rulings fly in the face of a growing mountain of social science research showing that the best household arrangement for children is a married mom and dad. It contradicts centuries of experience across time and cultures for the best family structure for strong nations. It represents a national experiment in social reconstruction at the expense of our children’s futures and the future of America. These decisions repudiate — with a vengeance — the sacred trust of the Founders who built this great nation “under God” and on a foundation of Judeo-Christian principles that have stood the test of time.

Worse, the rulings warn of a future where Christians will have a choice: Keep silent about their faith or face not just being cast as a social pariah, but harsh retribution in the form of fines and imprisonment. It is hard to envision such an outcome, but the pivotal changes and losses of religious freedom and freedom of speech over the past few years portend a bleak future Christians must take seriously.

Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse visited Eagle Forum Live on Saturday, where she spoke with Phyllis Schlafly about the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The two were not optimistic for the future of the country after the DOMA decision. In fact, Crouse implied that same-sex marriage would undermine community volunteerism because “a man and a woman committed to each other for life” are “where we get our volunteers for hospitals, our volunteers for services to the homeless, our volunteers for all sorts of community outreaches, from the local scout troop to volunteering to visit the sick in individual churches.”

Schlafly: Tell us what you think about the real importance and the role that traditional marriage has played in our society and must play in our society if we’re going to continue to be a free country.

Crouse: Well, I think we’re all used to hearing the arguments that marriage is best for individuals, it’s best for women, it’s best for men, it’s best for children. And I have a whole book on how marriage has really, the demise of marriage has really hurt our children. But I think the thing that is really relevant right now is the fact that marriage is so good for communities, for nations. You cannot have a strong nation without strong marriages, it’s just as simple as that, because marriage is a husband and a wife working together.

A man and a woman committed to each other for life and committed to their children are the backbone of communities. That’s where we get our volunteers for hospitals, our volunteers for services to the homeless, our volunteers for all sorts of community outreaches, from the local scout troop to volunteering to visit the sick in individual churches. Volunteers generally come from families, people who are invested in the community and have a long-term interest in that community’s strength. And the same thing holds for nations.

Later in the conversation, Schlafly lamented that public schools are teaching children “that there are all kinds of families and you have to be respectful of all kinds.” Crouse responded that “it’s even worse than that,” because “we cannot even look at magazines at the supermarket checkout counter without having in our face homosexual embraces and couples who are flaunting [sic] public opinion and flaunting public mores.”

“It’s, I think, very egregious that we have to live with these kinds of public demonstrations that are trying to desensitize our children,” she added.

Schlafly: Janice, I wish you’d particularly address the problem in the schools, because I’m concerned that what the children are going to be taught in schools and what they cannot be taught in the schools.

Crouse: Well, we’re already seeing so much bias against Christians in our schools. It’s appalling to me as the grandmother of seven children who are in public schools. I’m seeing the evidence in a variety of different schools, from elementary through high school, where children are not allowed to express their own personal views in the context of the school, as though they only have freedom of speech at home or in the confines of their church or local synagogue or temple, wherever they worship.

Schlafly: Well, Dr. Crouse, it’s even worse than that. In their courses, they’re teaching them that there are all kinds of families and you have to be respectful of all kinds, and don’t pay any attention to what your parents say.

Crouse: Exactly. And it’s even worse than that, when you have indoctrination as early as preschool and in elementary school, as early as first grade and kindergarten, where kids are reading books. And we cannot even look at magazines at the supermarket checkout counter without having in our face homosexual embraces and couples who are flaunting public opinion and flaunting public mores. It’s, I think, very egregious that we have to live with these kinds of public demonstrations that are trying to desensitize our children.

Crouse added that she was appalled that “too many” conservatives “are unwilling to die” for the anti-gay cause, and have instead become “complacent” and decided to “live and let live”:

Conservatives, far too many, are unwilling to die for it. They are too complacent, they are too laissez faire, they really do not understand the impact of what’s happening in this country, to the point that they are willing to take a stand and make a difference. Far too many people are saying, ‘Well, I live and let live. I’m not going to be judgmental. This is what I believe, but I’m not going to foist my beliefs off on other people,’ or, ‘I can’t go out there into the public square and say these kinds of things.’ I think we have to discover a courage, we have to be very brave, we have to be willing to say, ‘This is where I stand. These are the values that made this country great. These are the values that are important to me and to my family and to my family’s future and to the family of this country.’

When HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled an FDA recommendation to allow the sale of the Plan B morning-after pill over the counter to women without age restrictions, Religious Right groups weren’t able to come up with a coherent response. Several conservative activists alleged (without any evidence) that the move was intended to compel women to go to Planned Parenthood clinics instead of pharmacies, while Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel came up with the bizarre claim that the Obama administration actually opposed the position it had taken and even defended in court.

Now that the courts have sided with reproductive justice organizations that supported the FDA’s original assessment of Plan B, the administration has relented and agreed to allow sales of Plan B without a prescription.

Naturally, groups opposed to contraception are now enraged that the Obama administration is complying with the rulings.

Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance accused the administration of having “abandoned common sense,” saying she “fear[s] for the future health and wellness of women and children.” CWA senior fellow Janice Crouse warned that “it will not be long before we see girls and women forced to purchase Plan B for their abuser to keep them and others enslaved. This is a pimp, predator, and pedophile’s dream.”

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life asserted that the Plan B case was further proof the “President Obama is waging a War on Girls” and endorsing “child abuse.”

Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council said girls will now be forced to take Plan B “under coercion or without their consent.”

Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America told LifeNews: “Though President Obama himself has said ‘as the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine,’ his administration has abandoned common sense and will allow our nation’s teens and young girls to have access to a highly powerful drug forty times stronger than birth control. I sincerely fear for the future health and wellness of women and children, as doctors, parents, and pharmacists are eliminated from this very serious conversation about sexual activity, pregnancy, fertility, and overall health.”

Janice Crouse, also of CWFA, responded: “Once again, those who yell the loudest about caring about the nation’s children and youth applaud a decision to place our kids in a special interest experiment. Plan B, popularly called the ‘morning-after pill’ is a much-higher-dosage version of the regular birth control pill (which used to require a doctor’s prescription and continued doctor’s supervision). It is irresponsible to advocate over-the-counter use of these high-potency drugs, which would make them available to anyone – including those predators who exploit young girls. Mark my words, it will not be long before we see girls and women forced to purchase Plan B for their abuser to keep them and others enslaved. This is a pimp, predator, and pedophile’s dream – unlimited access to Plan B.”

She added: “This is a political decision, made by those who stand to profit financially from an action that puts ideology ahead of the nation’s girls and young women. Where is the scientific data and solid reasoning behind a decision that endangers minors?”

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America also weighed in on the decision.

She told LifeNews: “President Obama is waging a War on Girls by allowing young children to get Plan B without a physician or parent’s care or knowledge. The morning after pill is a megadose of the birth-control pill, which has been categorized by the World Health Organization as a Group I carcinogen. That’s the highest possible ranking – cigarettes are also in Group I. So why are drugstores required to put cigarettes behind the counter and ask for a photo id to stop minors from purchasing them, but President Obama is now ordering the morning after pill be sold over the counter, next to candy bars and packs of gum? This is not reproductive justice, this is child abuse.”

…

“There is a real danger that Plan B may be given to young girls, under coercion or without their consent. The involvement of parents and medical professionals act as a safeguard for these young girls. However, today’s ruling removes these commonsense protections,” concluded Higgins.

In a Washington Times column today, Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse repeats her frequent claim that progressive social policies are to blame for what she once called “realities that are evident should one take a risky drive into certain neighborhoods of our cities.”

Crouse writes that the results of “taxpayer-funded contraceptives, abortions and expanding government welfare” and “the decline of marriage, including no-fault divorce and the sexual revolution” are “there for all to see – at least on TV— in areas where married-couple families are already too scarce to provide the necessary critical mass for a healthy environment.”

In particular, Crouse cites the 1991 classic “Boyz N The Hood" as an illustration of the results of liberal social policies.

Participants at the Sydney congress were reminded that throughout history and across all cultures, marriage has been the foundation of families and the bedrock of civilized nations. Married moms and dads having babies and raising the next generation of children have been so much the norm of personal experience in every nation that now with birthrates sinking below replacement levels, it is hard to imagine the long-term impact of their absence. The result is there for all to see — at least on TV — in areas where married-couple families are already too scarce to provide the necessary critical mass for a healthy environment. Without strong families to exert moral authority, neighborhoods echo scenes from the classic 1991 movie “Boyz N The Hood” that take the viewer inside the gang-infested communities of South Central Los Angeles, where marauding gangs, constantly at war with each other, illustrated what happens when there are not enough strong fathers to control and civilize the young males.

…

For decades, liberals, progressives, feminists and welfare advocates have tried to find solutions to the problems associated with out-of-wedlock childbearing, single motherhood and child poverty — without advocating marriage in public policy. Their solutions? Taxpayer-funded contraceptives, abortions and expanding government welfare. We don’t need to ask how that has worked out. The answer is obvious. The decline of marriage, including no-fault divorce and the sexual revolution, is a luxury popularized by celebrities but it is a dead-end trap for the poor that exacts a price from their children.

Kids that come from healthy marriages are vital to the future of society, but the contributions of good marriages do not end there. By building strong, healthy families, married couples create virtue. In some immeasurable way, the goodness they create — simply by living according to the natural order and moral law designed by the Creator — is of benefit not just for the couple, but their success also contributes vitality to the whole. Anytime a marriage nurtures, shelters and protects, it becomes a stage for all to see where scenes of love and joyful celebration are played out again and again. Equally important, both communities and nations also benefit.

Glenn Beck's business empire is reportedly bringing in more than $80 million per year.

Speaking of Beck, he wants all those who don't share his views to stay out of Texas.

Jason Richwine, the co-author of the Heritage
Foundation's controversial immigration study, has resigned.

Don Feder warns that "the president of the United States is drawn to Islam as a
doctrinaire leftist, as well as for sentimental reasons. It fits his idealized recollection of his childhood, when he was a
'Jakarta street kid,' and romantic fantasies about his Muslim biological father. The left, which views Islam as the
religion of the oppressed, makes common cause with it in its hatred for America, Israel and capitalism, and their dreams of a
totalitarian one-world government – for Islam, the Caliphate, for the left, the New World Order. "

Cathy Ruse is mad at Obama: "Mr. President, I
dare you to tell my daughters I’m not their mother."

Finally, Janice Shaw Crouse is likewise
no fan of Obama: "As someone with
a doctorate in communication theory who spent years analyzing presidential speeches and studying political rhetoric, I've never
seen a presidential speech that was more repulsively self-centered and insidiously self-serving; nor has a previous president operated
in campaign mode so unrelentingly throughout his presidency, regardless of the occasion or circumstances."

Concerned Women for America’s Janice Shaw Crouse is very concerned about a new Census Bureau report finding a spike in births to unmarried mothers. In an American Thinkercolumn today, Crouse accuses “liberals, progressives, feminists and welfare advocates” of responding to “problems associated by the triad of out-of-wedlock childbearing, single motherhood, and child poverty” by promoting “abortion and increased welfare dependency.” The failure of these policies, she claims, “is obvious to anyone who will face the realities that are evident should one take a risky drive into certain neighborhoods of our cities.”

The founding fathers, she continues, “would roll over in their graves” to see that the country has become “mired in reckless self-indulgence and thus regressed in terms of people's well being.”

For decades, liberals, progressives, feminists and welfare advocates have tried to get to the bottom of the problems associated by the triad of out-of-wedlock childbearing, single motherhood, and child poverty. Heretofore, the solutions have been abortion and increased welfare dependency. I don't need to ask, "How is that working for us?" The answer is obvious to anyone who will face the realities that are evident should one take a risky drive into certain neighborhoods of our cities or choose the safer route of reading about the dramatic increases in non-marital births documented in the SECCUM report.

The nation's founding fathers first instituted a national census so that the nation could "mark the progress of society." They would roll over in their graves to see that the nation they founded with great hope and based on principles of personal and civic responsibility, instead of progressing, has instead become mired in reckless self-indulgence and thus regressed in terms of people's well being. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the past four decades trying to alleviate the consequences of poor and irresponsible choices only to reap a harvest of greater dependency than ever before and several generations of children at risk for all the negative outcomes that parents hope to avoid (truancy, delinquency, substance abuse, etc). It is not merely the demographics of non-marital child bearing that need to be publicized but an honest, extensive reporting of the damages as well.

When the sum total of our morality, both personal and public, consists of not being judgmental, we should not be surprised to find that there is little will to be concerned with more than the pursuit of whatever brings a moment of pleasure today with no regard for the effects this will have for anyone's well-being tomorrow.

The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, an Illinois-based conservative group, convened a symposium in Washington earlier this month to discuss topics including “Defending Faith in an Age of Christophobia,” “The Pornography Industry,” and “Economic and Social Costs of Abortion.”

At a panel titled “The ‘War on Women’: Myth or Reality?,” Concerned Women for America senior fellow Janice Shaw Crouse argued that it is in fact “those who present themselves as champions of women’s rights” who “constitute a very real war on women.” This “war,” Crouse declares, began in the 1960s and has “undermined and torn apart the faith, values and morality that have held together a diverse and multicultural people.”

Why, then, do we even have to ask, ‘Is there a war on women?’ The war began as early as 1960. Since then, our nation has been experiencing a harsh cultural winter. Howling winds of change, insidious myths and outright falsehoods have undermined and torn apart the faith, values and morality that have held together a diverse and multicultural people.

These myths and those attacks, those falsehoods by those who present themselves as champions of women’s rights constitute a very real war on women. It’s a senseless war, promoting casual sex, spreading the myth that women don’t need marriage, and pushing the cultural and public policies that inevitably lead women to be the majority of those in poverty. That war against women has loosened and upended many of the foundation stones of the Judeo-Christian principles.

The Pew Research Center is out with a new analysis showing that the support of people under 30 was critical to President Obama’s reelection victory. Concerned Women For America’s Janice Crouse has a theory as to why, a theory that she bolsters with a quote from a “popular Amazon discussion.”

Why, then, did young voters overwhelmingly support President Obama? The short answer is: Demographics and Dependency.

Nearly 60% of young voters favor an activist government (compared to 44% of older voters). A sharp generational difference was noted in the racial and ethnic makeup of this year's voters. Seventy-six percent of voters 30 and older were white, with 12% black, 8% Latino and the rest falling under a number of other self-identifiers. Among young voters, 58% identified themselves as white, while 42% were either black, Latino or among another minority group. A popular Amazon discussion declared, "Young voters choose marijuana and government dependency over jobs and prosperity."

For the record, this thread of 15 comments appears to be the “popular Amazon discussion” at issue. (Apparently young voters are also interested in “bicycles and beards.”)

The New York Times reports that the Family Research Council hopes to make up the lost air-support from groups like American Crossroads and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which have dropped their planned advertisements:

Leaders of several conservative Christian and social-issues groups said they would step in with organizational, financial and news-media help. The Family Research Council said it now hoped to sponsor independent advertising and phone banks and solicit donations for Mr. Akin. And by Wednesday evening, those tiny donations requested by Mr. Akin’s campaign several times this week were starting to add up. Mr. Akin’s Twitter account reported that he had set a goal to raise $100,000 by midnight and had raised $88,000.

Akin also met with the secretive, right-wing Council for National Policy in Tampa, days before the city hosts the Republican National Convention:

Rep. Todd Akin was in Tampa Wednesday night meeting with top conservative groups and donors, several sources confirmed to POLITICO.

The embattled Missouri Senate candidate flew to Tampa to meet with members of the Council for National Policy, a secretive coalition of powerful conservative and evangelical leaders, activists, and donors.

A person attending the CNP gathering in Tampa confirmed Akin was there Wednesday evening, after several sources close to Akin in Missouri said he would be attending. It was unclear if Akin had been invited prior to his “legitimate rape” remarks Sunday.

He has been a pro-life advocate his whole career. He's been a man who has worked in crisis pregnancy centers. He's reached out to women and helped women in numerous ways in his private life. So it's very unfortunate that he's one who used words so insensitively, and he apologized for them, of course, and retracted from them.

But I think the bigger question for me is this whole business of the politics of personal destruction. We have a very, I think, appalling double-standard in this country where Republicans are held to these standards that are appropriate but somehow the Democrats get a pass. Vice President Biden, for instance, most recently and most - in the headlines talked about you're going to put those, put everybody in chains.

We expect leftists, liberals, and other miscreants to pounce opportunistically, to lie, cheat, and twist (all the while drooling) over a phrase like “legitimate rape” when uttered by a strong conservative Christian politician. But should we expect the same from alleged conservatives?

Yet this is exactly what we’ve seen from several prominent conservatives in the wake of a media gaffe from U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin (R-MO) in regard to alleged “legitimate rape” and abortion.

…

There is, after all, the distinct possibility that if abortion were outlawed but with an exception for “rape,” that many of the women who buy abortions purely out of convenience today would then simply claim to have been raped in order to procure the legality.

For some reason, even to mention the possibility that a woman may lie about being raped is supposed to be politically incorrect—untouchable. It enrages leftists, and for some reason, therefore, frightens conservatives. Are a woman’s intentions never to questioned—completely off limits—when she claims to have been raped?

The answer is generally yes, but there is a least one major exception to this: When she intends to use that claim as justification to murder an innocent third party, a baby. The right to life trumps the right to privacy.

Liberals may wish us to believe that no woman would ever stoop so low as to lie about being raped. But this simply does not comport with what we Christians know about fallen human nature. We, conservatives, all agree that millions of women annually conspire to commit murder on their unborn babies. So do you expect me to feel it unacceptable to believe they would lie about why? This is political correctness run amok. Why, after all, would someone willing to kill out of convenience not also lie for various reasons out of convenience?

UPDATE: CNN reports that Tony Perkins of the FRC and Restoration Project organizer David Lane are both standing behind Akin:

“Following the pounding of Todd Akin by the GOP kings and lieutenants in the last 36 hours, I've come to the conclusion that the real issue is the soul of America,” wrote David Lane, an evangelical activist who’s influential in the Republican Party, in an e-mail to fellow activists Thursday morning.

“The swift knee-jerk reaction to throw Akin, a strong conservative pro-life, pro-family born again Christian under the bus by some in the Republican Party is shining the light on their actual agenda,” Lane continued.

“We haven't seen anything this vicious since some of the same operatives did this to (Sarah) Palin.”

...

In a note to supporters Wednesday night, conservative Family Research Council President Tony Perkins heaped criticism on the GOP for abandoning Akin.

"Todd Akin has a long and distinguished record of defending women, children, and families – and unlike the GOP establishment, I refuse to throw him under the bus over one inarticulate comment for which he has apologized,” wrote Perkins, who is in Tampa attending events leading up the convention.

“As for the GOP, it has no rational basis for deserting Akin when it has stood by moderate Republicans who've done worse,” Perkins continued. “Singling out Todd suggests a double standard, designed to drive out social conservatives.”

The US Embassy in the Czech Republic, as part of the State Department’s new LGBT rights initiative, is supporting a pride festival in Prague “to address discriminatory behavior based on sexual orientation and to promote a tolerant civil society and equal opportunities in the Czech Republic.” AlreadyirateoverSecretaryHillaryClinton’sspeechonLGBTrights, American Religious Right activists joined their European, African and Latin American allies to denounce the Obama administration for “aggressively promoting the ‘gay’ agenda internationally” and leading a campaign of “cultural imperialism” [PDF]:

At the directive of the president of the United States, Washington is aggressively promoting the “gay’’ agenda internationally, including same-sex “marriage” and the stigmatization and marginalization of any who object to the same.

The Obama’s administration’s embrace of “same-sex marriage” has been overwhelmingly rejected by the American people. There have been 32 state referenda on marriage. In every one of them, voters endorsed the natural definition of marriage (a man and a woman). The North Carolina vote, on May 8, was 61% in favor of natural marriage.

…

It stands to reason, then, that anything which undermines the family – including changing the definition of marriage – is a breach of the State’s responsibility to protect this indispensable institution which precedes government and makes a stable and free society possible.

The Madrid Declaration of World Congress of Families VI (May 25-27, 2012) --which was unanimously adopted by more than 3,200 delegates from 72 countries --provides, in part: “We affirm the natural family to be the union of a man and a woman through marriage for the purposes of sharing love and joy, propagating children, providing their moral education, building a vital home economy, offering security in times of trouble, and binding the generations.”

Regarding “gay rights,” those caught up in this lifestyle have the same rights as other citizens. This does not include the “right” to force others to validate a lifestyle they find objectionable, for religious or other reasons. It also does not include the right of men to marry men and women to marry women.

The foregoing pseudo-rights do not advance human freedom and dignity but debase them.

We can not imagine a worse form of cultural imperialism than Washington trying to force approval of the “gay” agenda on societies with traditional values.

Last month, the War on Women reached a new level when every single Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against a reauthorization of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA has been reauthorized with broad bipartisan support twice since its original passage, but this year, Republicans objected to the inclusion of new provisions to protect LGBT people and immigrant women.

On her radio show last week, Janet Mefferd discussed the battle over VAWA reauthorization with Concerned Women for America’s Janice Crouse.

Crouse charged that VAWA – which grants funds to local communities to develop programs combatting domestic violence – mostly funds “reeducating programs for judges to try to train them in the principles of feminism and so-called ‘women’s rights.’”

Crouse and Mefferd were especially scornful of new provisions protecting immigrants and LGBT people and an eliminated provision making it easier to combat date rape on campuses, with Crouse warning that women would just abuse the system to get green cards and make false accusations of date rape.

Crouse: Quite frankly, much of the Violence Against Women funds reeducating programs for judges to try to train them in the principles of feminism and so-called ’women’s rights.’

Mefferd: Wow, that’s what we need, we need more indoctrination of judges, right?

Crouse: Right. [laughs]

...

Mefferd: So they’ve expanded this to cover more subgroups, but why can’t it just, if you’re going to have a domestic violence piece of legislation, why can’t it just cover anyone who’s affected by domestic violence? Is this just another one where they’re trotting out their typical liberal ways and, you know, ‘We’ve got to emphasize non-discrimination against sexual orientation, etc. etc.’ Is that just kind of the agenda here again?

Crouse: Exactly right. Plus, you have a number of women from other countries who marry Americans to come to this country, and then they want out of the marriage. Well, VAWA provides a way for them to get out, a very easy way for them to get out.

One of the things that I found particularly troubling, and thank goodness the Republicans stood up against this, was the effort to change dating rape to not require clear and convincing evidence, and that’s a legal term, clear and convincing evidence, but instead to require preponderance of evidence, which is a much lower standard and is not clear and convincing. So a girl the next morning could just say, ‘Well, I really made a mistake,’ and accuse a guy of date rape, or have any kind of regrets and accuse a guy of date rape.

Mefferd: Well, isn’t that unconstitutional, to lower the standard there on crime?

Crouse: Well, I’m not a constitutional specialist, but in terms of legal ramifications, it’s disastrous.